India restaurant bomb blast kills nine in Pune

At least nine people have been killed and 57 others injured in a bomb attack at a restaurant in India's western city of Pune, officials say.
The explosion tore through the German Bakery, which is popular with tourists, in Koregaon Park.
The bombing is the first major strike of its kind in India since the deadly Mumbai attacks in November 2008.
Reports that one of the dead is a foreign national have not yet been confirmed by the Indian authorities.
Several foreigners were said to be among the injured.

The explosion at the restaurant, on North Main Road, happened at about 1900 (1330 GMT), when it was packed with diners.
"It appears that an unattended package was noticed in the bakery by one of the waiters who apparently attempted to open the package when the blast took place," Indian Home Secretary GK Pillai was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.
"We heard a big noise and we all rushed out. The impact was so great that there were body parts everywhere," Vinod Dhale, who works at the restaurant, told Reuters.
'High alert'
Anti-terror squad officers have gone to the scene.

Nearby shops were badly damaged and reported to have been splattered with blood.
"I came running to the bakery after hearing the explosion. I found people lying all over the place", local resident Abba More told AP.
Initial reports had suggested the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder.
The German Bakery is near the Osho Ashram, a mystic centre popular with visitors to Pune.
The Chabad centre, run by the Jewish Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement, is also in the vicinity.
Members of the Chabad-Lubavitch were targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and in October 2009 the home ministry issued a security alert for the Chabad centre in Pune.
No-one has yet said they carried out the latest attack.
However Home Minister P Chidambaram described it as "a significant terrorist incident".
"All the evidence points to a deliberate plot," he told AFP.
The bomb blast comes a day after India and Pakistan agreed to meet for talks in Delhi on February 25.
The talks will be their first formal negotiations since the Mumbai attacks.
No conclusions could be drawn yet as to who was responsible for the blast, Mr Pillai said.
"Forensic investigations have just begun. Till they are completed, we will not know who is [involved]", he told AP.
The home ministry has issued an advisory to all state governments to be on high alert.


An explosion Saturday at an eatery in the western Indian city of Pune killed at least eight people and injured 33 others, authorities said.
"It appears to be a bomb blast, and bombs obviously are related to terrorism," said U.K. Bansal, special secretary for security in India's Interior Ministry.
Four of the dead were not from India, he told CNN.
Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters that the explosives were packed in a bag noticed by a waiter at the popular eatery called the German Bakery. The explosion occurred about 7:30 p.m. local time Saturday.
Rajendra Sonawane, joint police commissioner for the city, said the blast struck the German Bakery in Pune's Koregaon Park, sister network CNN-IBN reported.
Initially, authorities thought a cooking gas cylinder had exploded at the bakery, but all cylinders were accounted for, according to CNN-IBN.
An anti-terrorism squad is assisting in the investigation, Chandra Iyengar, home secretary for Maharashtra state, told CNN. However, he wouldn't confirm the blast as a terrorist attack.
The German Bakery is frequented by tourists. It's near the Osho Ashram, a commune founded by the late Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who returned to India from the United States in the 1980s.



Bomb blast kills at least 9 in India
PUNE, India (Reuters) - A bomb ripped through a packed restaurant in the Indian city of Pune on Saturday, killing at least eight people including one foreigner in the country's first big attack since the 2008 Mumbai massacre.
The explosion came a day after India and Pakistan agreed to meet for high-level talks in New Delhi on February 25. New Delhi suspended a four-year-old peace process with Islamabad after the Mumbai attacks, blamed on Pakistani-based militants.
Police said the bomb was hidden in a bag left in the German Bakery restaurant, a favorite of Jewish and European visitors, when it was full of tourists on Saturday evening.
"We heard a big noise and we all rushed out. The impact was so much that there were tiny body parts everywhere," said Vinod Dhale, an employee at the bakery.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded 32 people. But any sign of Pakistani involvement would worsen relations between the two nuclear rivals and further destabilize a region overshadowed by war in Afghanistan.
"Let us wait for the forensic report before we draw any conclusion," said Home (interior) Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram. "Let us not speculate," he urged reporters and promised that his ministry would issue an official statement on the attack every 4-6 hours.
Debris was strewn all around the bakery, located near an ashram or religious retreat which is also frequented by foreigners, and a Jewish center. The impact of the blast knocked the bakery's sign off, blew out windows and left a large crater inside the restaurant.
"It (the bomb) was under one of the tables ... We transferred lots of people to the ambulances ... there is no German Bakery any more," one foreigner, short of breath and resting against a wall, told local CNN-IBN television.
Police first said that four foreigners were killed but later the state government officials revised this to one.